Succulents and More™

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’re familiar with San Marcos Growers (SMG) in Santa Barbara, both as a supplier of über -cool plants and as the operator of arguably the best plant resource on the web. San Marcos has been there throughout my gardening life — a constant, like sunshine in the summer and aloe flowers in the winter. But all of that is over now. After 46 years in operation, SMG closed its gates for good on December 23, 2025. I’ve been friends with Randy Baldwin, SMG’s general manager, for a number of years and have had the opportunity to visit the nursery on several occasions. When I stopped there in January of 2025 , I thought it was the last time. And I was right. Sort of. While San Marcos did cease operations a couple of months ago, they still have quite a few plants left and continue to be open by appointment for the time being. Needless to say Kyle and I jumped at the opportunity when we were in Santa Barbara at the end of January . As sad as I am...

I have plenty more posts from Santa Barbara in the pipeline, but I want to take a quick break to show you some recent developments in our own garden. Remember my big Aloe ‘Moonglow’ falling over about three weeks ago? I made a clean cut to the trunk and replanted it a bit closer to the fence. Here it is today, not missing a beat: Replanted Aloe ‘Moonglow’ this close to flowering That was ‘Moonglow’ #1. This is what greeted me when I got back from Santa Barbara last week: Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 face-planted on the sidewalk Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 had fallen over, too! That pesky thing called gravity at work again! Amazing how in just a day or two in this horizontal position the flower heads had already started to change orientation! I made a clean cut and reset the ‘Moonglow’ a bit closer to the fence, just like the other one. Aloe ‘Moonglow’ #2 after resetting As of today, the flower heads are still in the wrong orientation, but I imagine they’ll right themselves in due course. Aloe ‘M...

This is a continuation of my previous post featuring random pictures from around Santa Barbara. To see other posts from my recent trip, click here . Aloes As I mentioned earlier , Agave attenuata , the foxtail agave, was the most common landscape succulent we saw in Santa Barbara. But there were plenty of aloes as well. The ones that were in flower were immediately noticeable. We spotted many Aloe arborescens , but for some reason neither Kyle nor I took a single photo (they’re pretty boring). I did take photos of Aloe ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ , lots of them. Last year, Randy Baldwin of San Marcos Growers told me about a mass planting of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in a local business park. I featured it in this January 2025 post , together with a spectacular display of Aloe ‘Birds and Bees’ in another commercial landscape nearby. I wanted Kyle to see both of these plantings so we stopped there after we left San Marcos Growers on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, the ‘Birds and Bees’ were past their prim...